My kingdom for a striker

Ted Drake, Reg Lewis, Joe Baker, John Radford, Charlie Nicholas, Alan Smith, Ian Wright, Thierry Henry, Robin van Persie. Arsenal have a storied history of centre-forwards. That history has been slightly spotty since the departure of Robin van Persie in 2012. Olivier Giroud signed the same summer that van Persie departed and he fell into that ‘really good but not world class’ category.

Giroud is a player fans have appreciated more in hindsight, freed from the contemporary frustration of believing that Arsenal’s number 9 should have a little more stardust around them. For the six and a half years that Giroud was at Arsenal, there were several attempts to upgrade on him as Plan A.

In the summer of 2013, Arsenal wanted Luis Suarez or Gonzalo Higuain and got neither, in the summer of 2014 Arsenal searched high and low for a striker and eventually settled on Danny Welbeck on deadline day. (Contemporary reporting suggests that Wenger really had to be convinced and the deal was aided by the fact that England were training at London Colney on transfer deadline day).

In the summer of 2015 Arsenal unsuccessfully chased Karim Benzema (RIP Steve Woods), while in 2016 they bid for Jamie Vardy before settling on Lucas Perez. In 2017, Wenger finally settled on Alex Lacazette, a player he probably could have bought in any of the two prior summers if he had really wanted to. The reluctance of that signing was compounded by the arrival of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang six months later.

By the summer of 2017, Wenger, fatigued by the striker chase, likely settled on Lacazette on the (understandable) basis that Arsenal could not continue to come up empty handed in their pursuit of a striker. I can understand why Arsenal fans might make the comparison to Viktor Gyokeres as Arsenal, having been frustrated by failed bids for Benjamin Sesko and Ollie Watkins in the last two windows, could not let another transfer period pass without a new centre-forward.

Injury to Gabriel Jesus means that Gyokeres is needed numerically, as much as anything. Kai Havertz is the only other operational centre-forward that Arsenal have. Obviously, we all hope that Gyokeres is an outrageous success as a goal scorer for Arsenal but the truth is, even if he becomes a serviceable Kai Havertz alternative, that improves the squad. (I am not saying that would improve the squad enough; but it still improves it).

As much as we probably don’t want another Lacazette situation (though the Frenchman was not an enormous failure, he wore the captain’s armband and won Player of the Season on one occasion), there are examples in Arsenal’s history of the consequences of stasis. You could very well argue that January 2025 was one of them!

Probably the most striking example of this was the summer of 1998. Nicolas Anelka had started to emerge at the tail end of the Double winning season and Ian Wright had fallen out of favour and moved to West Ham. The story goes that Arsenal were totally happy for Anelka to take the reins from Wright but it wasn’t quite as simple as that.

They spent most of that summer pursuing Patrick Kluivert from AC Milan (he eventually moved to Barcelona later in that period). Arsenal had a wage structure where nobody was paid more than £30k a week, Kluivert wanted £40k and Arsenal would not stretch to it. Arsenal lost the league by one point that season, they conceded 20 fewer goals than Manchester United but scored 21 fewer.

In August 1998, Arsenal had three consecutive goalless draws, in September they drew 1-1 at Leicester and lost 1-0 at ten-man Sheffield Wednesday. Spurs and Derby also held Arsenal to 0-0 draws while Southampton and Middlesbrough earned 1-1 draws at Highbury and Wimbledon eked out a 1-0 win over the Gunners at Selhurst Park. That January, Arsenal signed Kaba Diawara (!) and Nwankwo Kanu.

Diawara never scored for Arsenal despite hitting the woodwork 306 times, but Arsenal’s goal scoring fortunes transformed with Kanu in the team. Prior to Kanu’s signing on 15 January, the team managed 22 goals in 22 league games. In the 16 games after Kanu’s arrival, they scored 37 times. Long story short, the failure to add a centre-forward a few months earlier cost Arsenal the title. It really was that simple.

Having failed to add a striker in the summer of 1998 Arsenal went striker crazy in 1999, Kaba Diawara, having joined in January 1999, left six months later. Davor Suker and Thierry Henry joined as Nicolas Anelka left for Real Madrid. Arsenal were pretty savvy with their striker recruitment that summer, using 32-year-old Davor Suker as a parachute to help Henry settle in.

Henry started upfront at home to Derby County in late November 1999 and scored twice, prior to that he had one Premier League goal. Suker carried the can for a couple of months while Henry found his sea legs. Suker’s last Arsenal goal arrived in January 2000, by then, Henry hadn’t just found his sea legs, he was in control of a fucking great turbocharged speed boat.

There have also been times when Arsenal signed a goal scorer despite not obviously needing one. When Ian Wright arrived in September 1991, Arsenal had just been Austria Wien 6-1 in the European Cup and striker Alan Smith scored four goals. Smith won the Golden Boot when the Gunners won the league title in 1989 and 1991 and they had Kevin Campbell coming through from the academy.

Wright felt like a luxury signing for the defending champions at the time but George Graham felt he could remould Smith as the more withdrawn striker in his 442 and have Wright plunder the penalty area booty. I have always had a loosely held theory that teams based around a single goalscorer tend not to win league titles.

Newcastle came within inches of winning the Premier League in 1995-96, that summer they signed Alan Shearer, their greatest ever striker and they never competed for the title again. During Ruud van Nistelrooy’s five years at Manchester United they won the league once.

After signing Wright, Arsenal didn’t win the league again until he was largely injured in 1997-98. It’s not the fault of the players themselves, of course, but teams with multiple threats tend to fare better over a league campaign.

It’s quite a leap from Portugal for Gyokeres and while I hope that he competes for the Golden Boot, to reach the Haaland / Salah level of goal scoring would make him one of the best signings in the club’s history. In Gyokeres and Havertz, Arsenal might have ‘two Girouds’ in pure goal scoring terms (I think Havertz’s importance to the overall team is immense beyond his goal scoring).

Though Arsenal will be aiming for one or both the Premier League and Champions League trophies, the last silverware they picked up in 2020 was almost entirely down to the scoring exploits of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. I guess I would accept a Gyokeres brace to win the 2026 Champions League Final…

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